[UPDATE 10/21/2021 -After 2018 I started posting my updates on my Patreon page, and so I'm filling in the back-logs for this project retroactively so the whole story is in both places. You can also read all of these posts with their original photo formatting here]

January 30th, 2021-

Hello dear patrons, and welcome to another monthly project update!

I've made some exciting progress this month on the Biochar Reactor and the LOVE trikes, and have added some new designs for an off grid power storage system to the Power Plant section of the Don't Panic google drive where I'm keeping all my documentation.

Over the past few months, a group of friends and I, collectively referred to as the Future Problems Collective, have been revamping the LOVE trikes with addressable LEDs and mobile infrastructure as a mobile pop-up art installation for Portland Winter Light Festival! We'll be riding the trikes around Portland, visiting the various distributed art installations around the city and generally being nice to people! You can find our routes on this map.

If you are in Portland and would like to join our ride, meet at the Northwest corner of Irving Park, BY 6pm, every night of the event - Feb 5 and 6th, and Feb 12 and13th.

I've also made some exciting improvements to the Biochar Reactor! The Tesla Coil-based ignition system is working splendidly, and has so far it has only exploded in exactly the ways it's supposed to. 

The Tesla Coil provides a constant spark so that as gas begins being produced by the reactor, it ignites and flares as soon as it becomes flammable.

This means that now I can just turn on the reactor and leave it alone, and it will automatically flare the gas through the tube as the default process, and then if I want to, I can redirect the gas to the generator to produce electricity.

The flare tube lets the operator visually confirm that the fuel is flammable and clean before using it for more sensitive things like the generator, which is a really handy feature, and looks dope as hell, if I do say so myself.

I also mounted the reactor on to an 800lb-rated hand truck, so now it's portable! It's not quite ready to carry around with the LOVE trikes and provide mobile heat, light, and power from biomass, but that's the ultimate goal, and it's closer than ever before.

Speaking of generators, I successfully ran my little generator a few times with this new setup, and I even produced a few watt-seconds of useable power, but the pull-start makes it difficult to automate, and the raw DC output of the generator without the inverter circuit was well over 100 volts, which my charge controller didn't like very much.

So, because of your generous patronage, I was able to order one of these DC generators from AliExpress, which should arrive in 20-38 days.

This generator cost around $650 shipped, and it can stop and start itself automatically according the batteries voltage, and/or with a wireless remote. It uses it's generator motor as it's starter motor, exactly like I was trying to do over the summer, but better. 

If it works, it also means a lot less hacking for people like you who may one day want to replicate this system, since this is a product that already exists and should require only minor modification to get it running on biomass gas, rather that the way I was doing it, which was VERY hacky.

Since the Tesla Coil and Trash Printer already run on 24VDC, getting the system charging a 24VDC battery bank from biomass gas would be a major step forward towards a fully trash-powered system.

So I've also begun designing a 24VDC LiFePO4 battery bank, with an inverter and solar charger system, using cells you can get from AliExpress. 

I've learned a ton about building and designing off grid systems like these by working at Light Harvest Solar, and I think I can build a very powerful 24VDC system, with the ability to start and stop the generator according to pre-set parameters. 

This part of the project is still very experimental, but all the files and resources I have for it are available in the Power Plant folder, so feel free to peruse that, but please keep in mind that this design is not yet tested, and is currently just a draft.

As always, thanks so much for your support! Dropping hundreds of dollars each month on random experiments that may or may not pan out would simply not be possible without the budget I get from patrons like you!

Onwards!

Sam